The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 is a magical little media player that packs in a lot features for a very low price. For starters it comes with a large 4.3-inch touchscreen display, 720p video playback with support for nearly every format, music player, FM radio, voice recorder, built-in loudspeaker, TV-out support, 8GB built-in memory and microSD card support, all this for a price of Rs. 4,200. Have we got your attention yet? Great, let's get on with the review then.
Bundle
- Zebronics Cinema 4.3
- Earphones
- USB Cable
- Stylus
- Stand
- User Guide
Design and Build
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 has a landscape orientation with a widescreen, 4.3-inch touchscreen display up front. The design is very basic and the player doesn't look very grand. The display has a centimeter thick bezel, which gives you something to hold on to. Zebronics has also added a kickstand for you to keep the player standing on your desk.
On top of the device is a power button near the left. On the left side is the headphone jack near the top, microSD card slot below, under a neat flap, 3.5mm TV-out jack and mini USB port. On the back of the device is the loudspeaker, which gets easily blocked when you keep the device on a surface, and the reset button, in case the player freezes.
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 has a landscape orientation with a widescreen, 4.3-inch touchscreen display up front. The design is very basic and the player doesn't look very grand. The display has a centimeter thick bezel, which gives you something to hold on to. Zebronics has also added a kickstand for you to keep the player standing on your desk.
On top of the device is a power button near the left. On the left side is the headphone jack near the top, microSD card slot below, under a neat flap, 3.5mm TV-out jack and mini USB port. On the back of the device is the loudspeaker, which gets easily blocked when you keep the device on a surface, and the reset button, in case the player freezes.
The player feels very light and the build quality isn't very impressive. It did survive a hard fall without coming apart, so it is stronger than it looks.
Display
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 gets its name from the 4.3-inch resistive touchscreen display. The display has a rather disappointing resolution of 480 x 272, which is quite less, especially for those of us used to seeing high resolution displays on smartphones. Still it isn't very bad and after a certain distance the lower resolution doesn't seem like a big deal. The image quality is pretty decent as well, although it was noticeably cold.
However, the touch response of the resistive touchscreen is quite horrible when you use your fingers. You have to press hard, to a point where it causes visible distortions on the LCD. Using the provided stylus gave better results; however, the device does not include any provision for inserting the stylus, which means you have to carry it separately with you.
User interface
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 has a pretty simple and no-nonsense interface. When you start the player, you will see the video, music and eBooks, the last one being pretty useless, as it only supports txt files. Clicking on a button on the left reveals additional options on the screen. The photo and video player use a file manager type layout, where you have to hunt down the files in their respective folders to play them. For music you can use the aforementioned route or choose from the categories such as Albums, Artists, etc.
The UI occasionally gets confusing, such as in the image gallery, where the controls are hidden and don't show up until you press the bottom of the screen. You also need to press the right edge of the screen to go to the next image and the inverse for the previous image. Again, this is not made clear and something you have to figure out on your own or by reading the manual.
The interface of the player is very snappy. This is probably a by-product of having a fast processor, which is a must if the device has to play HD files smoothly.
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 gets its name from the 4.3-inch resistive touchscreen display. The display has a rather disappointing resolution of 480 x 272, which is quite less, especially for those of us used to seeing high resolution displays on smartphones. Still it isn't very bad and after a certain distance the lower resolution doesn't seem like a big deal. The image quality is pretty decent as well, although it was noticeably cold.
However, the touch response of the resistive touchscreen is quite horrible when you use your fingers. You have to press hard, to a point where it causes visible distortions on the LCD. Using the provided stylus gave better results; however, the device does not include any provision for inserting the stylus, which means you have to carry it separately with you.
User interface
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 has a pretty simple and no-nonsense interface. When you start the player, you will see the video, music and eBooks, the last one being pretty useless, as it only supports txt files. Clicking on a button on the left reveals additional options on the screen. The photo and video player use a file manager type layout, where you have to hunt down the files in their respective folders to play them. For music you can use the aforementioned route or choose from the categories such as Albums, Artists, etc.
The UI occasionally gets confusing, such as in the image gallery, where the controls are hidden and don't show up until you press the bottom of the screen. You also need to press the right edge of the screen to go to the next image and the inverse for the previous image. Again, this is not made clear and something you have to figure out on your own or by reading the manual.
The interface of the player is very snappy. This is probably a by-product of having a fast processor, which is a must if the device has to play HD files smoothly.
Performance
We will start with the video playback, since that is the most interesting part about this device. Zebronics lists a rather impressive range of format support in up to 1280 x 720 resolution. The Cinema 4.3 managed to play most of the files we threw at it, except for a few, which technically should have worked as they were one of the supported formats, but didn't for unknown reason. We also tried to see if the player could play 1080p files but it flat out refused to, in every format we tried.
The good thing about the video playback is that when it works it is absolutely flawless. The videos are absolutely smooth in a way that would give most netbooks a complex. Even jumping to a particular point in the movie was quick. We just ran into trouble once while playing a very high bit-rate WMV file. Even though the file played smoothly, the player itself froze, which meant we could not access the controls until the file stopped playing on its own.
One of the major problems with the player is the lack of dedicated volume controls on the side. Every time the player makes you use the on-screen controls, which really sucks. It's especially frustrating when the resistive touchscreen refuses to cooperate with your finger, preferring instead to be poked with a sharper object.
Speaking of volume control, it was rather non-linear. After going up a few notches, the volume would increase dramatically with every notch. Around the halfway mark the player would become too loud and we never had to resort to increasing the volume beyond that point.
The fast forwarding and rewinding was bit tricky as well. Using the progress bar was inaccurate for larger videos as it would jump considerably for smaller movements. You then had to resort to using the on-screen buttons, which skipped a bit too fast, making you miss the part where you had to stop almost every time. It was only after several tries that we were able to reach where we wanted to.
Audio playback on the Cinema 4.3 is very good. First of all the player has very good audio quality. We tested the player with a pair of HiFiMAN RE0 and it sounded very good with them. Secondly, the player supports FLAC audio codec as well as uncompressed WMA. The second format is a bit tricky as even players that claim to support WMA don't work very well with uncompressed WMA. Unfortunately though, the Cinema 4.3 does not support AAC format.
The loudspeaker on the Cinema 4.3 is not very loud. It tends to sound a bit muddy and easily gets blocked when you hold the player or keep it on a surface. It's best to use headphones with this player.
Unfortunately, we couldn't test the TV-out functionality of the Cinema 4.3. Zebronics did not provide a cable in the bundle and we did not have one with us during the testing period.
Data transfer speeds to the device were pretty respectable. We got around 5 MB/s write speeds to the device. Unfortunately, write speeds to the microSD were painfully slow, so it would be advisable to purchase a card reader to transfer files.
Battery life
We got a continuous playback time of around four-and-a-half hours while playing standard definition files and around three hours while playing 720p videos. These were done with the display brightness at maximum and using the RE0 earphones, which thanks to their high-impedance, consume a lot of power. You could get a higher figure by using low impedance earphones and lower display brightness.
Verdict
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 is priced at Rs. 4,200. For that price you get the kind of features and performance that is usually expected of a device costing four times as much. And for that very reason we love it, and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a portable player for watching movies.
We will start with the video playback, since that is the most interesting part about this device. Zebronics lists a rather impressive range of format support in up to 1280 x 720 resolution. The Cinema 4.3 managed to play most of the files we threw at it, except for a few, which technically should have worked as they were one of the supported formats, but didn't for unknown reason. We also tried to see if the player could play 1080p files but it flat out refused to, in every format we tried.
The good thing about the video playback is that when it works it is absolutely flawless. The videos are absolutely smooth in a way that would give most netbooks a complex. Even jumping to a particular point in the movie was quick. We just ran into trouble once while playing a very high bit-rate WMV file. Even though the file played smoothly, the player itself froze, which meant we could not access the controls until the file stopped playing on its own.
One of the major problems with the player is the lack of dedicated volume controls on the side. Every time the player makes you use the on-screen controls, which really sucks. It's especially frustrating when the resistive touchscreen refuses to cooperate with your finger, preferring instead to be poked with a sharper object.
Speaking of volume control, it was rather non-linear. After going up a few notches, the volume would increase dramatically with every notch. Around the halfway mark the player would become too loud and we never had to resort to increasing the volume beyond that point.
The fast forwarding and rewinding was bit tricky as well. Using the progress bar was inaccurate for larger videos as it would jump considerably for smaller movements. You then had to resort to using the on-screen buttons, which skipped a bit too fast, making you miss the part where you had to stop almost every time. It was only after several tries that we were able to reach where we wanted to.
Audio playback on the Cinema 4.3 is very good. First of all the player has very good audio quality. We tested the player with a pair of HiFiMAN RE0 and it sounded very good with them. Secondly, the player supports FLAC audio codec as well as uncompressed WMA. The second format is a bit tricky as even players that claim to support WMA don't work very well with uncompressed WMA. Unfortunately though, the Cinema 4.3 does not support AAC format.
The loudspeaker on the Cinema 4.3 is not very loud. It tends to sound a bit muddy and easily gets blocked when you hold the player or keep it on a surface. It's best to use headphones with this player.
Unfortunately, we couldn't test the TV-out functionality of the Cinema 4.3. Zebronics did not provide a cable in the bundle and we did not have one with us during the testing period.
Data transfer speeds to the device were pretty respectable. We got around 5 MB/s write speeds to the device. Unfortunately, write speeds to the microSD were painfully slow, so it would be advisable to purchase a card reader to transfer files.
Battery life
We got a continuous playback time of around four-and-a-half hours while playing standard definition files and around three hours while playing 720p videos. These were done with the display brightness at maximum and using the RE0 earphones, which thanks to their high-impedance, consume a lot of power. You could get a higher figure by using low impedance earphones and lower display brightness.
Verdict
The Zebronics Cinema 4.3 is priced at Rs. 4,200. For that price you get the kind of features and performance that is usually expected of a device costing four times as much. And for that very reason we love it, and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a portable player for watching movies.
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